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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Dwergo Alchemical Revenants

Dwergo are the ‘true dwarves’ of legend; six foot, 500 hundred plus pound savants who lost their war against the elves after suffering from a reproductive curse that caused them only to be able to give birth to the greatly diminished dwarves of the modern era. They have been extinct extinct for 2000 years. In their ruins below Salt in Wounds –the deepest rooms of the CapCaps- a frigid tomb was discovered by explorers which held the preserved corpses of several thousand Dwergo; many of which featured intricate clockwork prosthesis. Knowledge of this discovery was sold to an information brokers, and bought by a small cabal of ambitious journeymen alchemists who journeyed below the city and began extensive experimentation upon the corpses in addition to study of their augmentations. In the two decades of research, these young alchemists learned much until finally -using Tarrasque derived alchemy- they were able to resurrect several of the dead Dwergo.After studying the reawakened beings and efforts to pierce the language barrier, the alchemists were quick to communicate they could inflict pain or even death upon the Reventant Dwergo. For their part, the Dwergo seemed to readily accept their lot and have begun to share their mysteries with the alchemists… though certain language barriers limit their usefulness. In actuality, the hyper-intelligent Dwergo have completely mastered the language of their captors and have begun to manipulate the ‘low born idiots’ in order to better learn about the remade world above & encourage the overconfident alchemists to resurrect more of their brothers and sisters. Dwergo are phenomenally strong and fast, their natural physicality augmented by clever implants of clockwork. They are also preternaturally intelligent: able to learn a language in the course of an afternoon (with their own fractal, multifaceted communication method near impossible to teach any other race). If threatened, they will use their martial training (advanced enough to enable them to block and otherwise redirect much magic) to quickly end any threat. If seriously challenged, they will retreat and covertly survey their opponents (via their battles with proxies and other hazards) and use this knowledge to gain advantage on their attacks and strike with near perfect tactical brilliance. All Alchemical Revenant Dwergo have a small ‘control’ device (a modified version of an alchemist testing apparatus which was itself created from knowledge gained by studying intact Dwergo devices) with tubuoles and prongs sunk into their neck. This device needs to be infused daily with a fresh distillate of a regenerative extract to keep the Dwergo ‘alive.’ While supposedly following the orders of their masters, the four score active Dwergo are secretly gathering enough knowledge and resources to usurp their ‘benefactors’ whereupon they plan to revive the additional 5000 other Dwergo, seize control of Salt in Wounds, and reestablish the Dwergo empire.